


distances

by wintersea (Afueras)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22199305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afueras/pseuds/wintersea
Summary: Link is injured and tries to deal with it alone. A lesson exists that sometimes, accepting help is not weakness but strength.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 88





	distances

Link wasn't sure if he'd ever felt so miserably ill. Mipha had already healed him; he wouldn't die, but he wouldn't get any more help for a while either. He was out of food and only had two elixirs - fireproof and hasty - which were not helpful.

He wished he'd spent more time learning first aid rather than relying on fairies and elixirs and food for patch jobs, but the past months had been so fraught with urgency and danger that the few peaceful moments were not ones he wanted to waste on what didn't feel important at the time. Now, he knew better. 

_ If I come out of here intact, I'll spend a week solid in the Domain, badgering healers to teach me to put myself back together _ .

He could warp to the Domain now, but he had better not. He hadn't been back since leaving after freeing Ruta - after spending three days in a bed in the inn, feigning a heavy sleep. He'd been awake the whole time fretting about Mipha and dreading facing her brother, after telling him that yes, even though she's free, she's still dead. 

He'd felt her with him, and there was no anger there. There would be none with Sidon, either, or even the elders who had hated him. Link was left alone in the inn to rest under Kodah's sharp eye, but he listened. They were grateful to him.  _ Grateful _ . That wasnt something he could deal with, not then. So he'd faked sleep and warped straight from the bed on the third day.

Now, he'd gladly face them all. It was the pain talking, sure, but still. 

His side had been torn open by a Lynel, he'd been shocked by half a dozen Lizalfos in a nearby camp, and then,  _ then _ , held together by elixirs and tight armor and willpower, he'd warped back to Medoh to face the Windblight while he was on a roll. He'd killed it, but he'd also died. Mipha fixed him. The conversation with Revali was an absolute blur, and he'd warped away right after being sent to Rito Village without even speaking to the Elder or anyone else. 

The stab wound in his side was infected. Mipha's power had focused on the injuries from the fight on Medoh, as that had been more pressing. But now the infection that swelled his ribs and made his lungs ache was almost equally pressing, and he was alone. 

The infection was his own doing. It was almost silly. If he'd taken just a day to heal before Medoh, worked out how to clean and protect the wound, it probably wouldn't be like this. 

Link groaned, suppressing most of the sound. The last thing he needed was to be found by one of those mounted bokoblins he'd seen earlier. He was huddled under an outcropping in the Ridgelands somewhere, too sore to move and also too stubborn. He'd always hidden his injuries. Even when he stayed at an inn it was usually when he'd already downed too many elixirs and changed into non-bloody armor that covered everything, some strange aversion to weakness rearing its head at his expense. 

His head fell back. The cold stone was good, kept him conscious. He'd felt odd and feverish on Medoh but didn't worry about it, assuming it was something to do with the climate or exhaustion. But afterwards, when he'd fled to isolation and peeled out of his snowquill tunic - he'd been sweating despite the weather, and not just from exertion - the infection was obvious. The wound was mostly closed, seeping cloudy blood from the deepest part. The whole thing was nearly twice as wide as Link's hand, courtesy of that horrible Lynel sword. 

It hadn't really hurt. It felt like a punch and immediately dulled to a powerful ache, which he ignored all through the fight with the Lizalfos, letting the sensation of electricity running through his limbs drown out every other kind of pain, mental included. As much as he hated being shocked he had to admit it was incredibly effective at being the only existing feeling for the moments that it lasted. The adrenaline and aftershocks from that fight carried him through downing his last two elixirs and warping to Medoh before his mind could be changed, and with the puzzles already behind him, Windblight Ganon was immediately in his sights. 

He'd only left for arrows. He could've gone to the village. There'd been no need to spend two days wandering the wilds, risking more of Revali's ire. But it had seemed the thing to do, and there was no taking it back, even as his barely-closed wounds screamed during the fight. He wasn't going to warp away again and repeat everything. No time, no point. 

When Revali's updraft first entered him it was the only thing that kept him upright - the Rito's very presence had seemed to swirl the wind and solidify the air, holding Link up. Whatever Revali said was lost to him. And now he sat wishing and almost begging to hear it again, to know how much anger was directed at him. Someone needed to tell him to  _ get up _ , to  _ keep moving _ . Revali seemed like he'd be a good candidate for that. 

Link couldn't move. The stiffness in his abdomen, the exhaustion, the fever, the way his eyesight dimmed when he moved too quickly. The doubt, the failure. 

Revali was dead like Mipha. Urbosa and Daruk were dead. He'd known it. He hadn't remembered them, though. He still didn't. Not enough. Just enough to be guilty. 

If this hurt, sure, he deserved it. But he couldn't die. His hands hovered uselessly over that seeping wound, eyeing the bruising, the way there was no unblemished skin around it either so it was hard to make out where the cut even ended. He needed to clean it. It was already infected, could it get worse? He couldn't risk finding out.

Sleet drove against the ground in waves, two feet from his face. Sleet should be clean. Clean enough. It'd be cold, which was probably good. Fighting the oppressive darkness that pushed at the edges of his vision he leaned out from the shelter, ignoring how it felt like being stabbed all over again. The shirt he'd woken up in was clean, as he'd had no use for it recently. It soaked up the sleet easily, rapidly growing heavy in his shaky grip before he drew it back in and pressed it against his side. 

Stars circled around; the world tilted a little. It didn't hurt  _ worse _ , just differently. He refused to allow any sound past his lips as he pressed a little harder, unwilling to rub for fear of opening the wound.

A couple of his ribs were visible on the other side, framed by tight muscle that contracted painfully at odd intervals. Link focused his gaze in on the ribs, watching them move slightly with each breath. 

Even breaths, he knew that. In and out. Get plenty of air, stay conscious, watch the rise and fall intently to make sure you're breathing how you think you are, in case your brain tries to play tricks. 

The pain eased a little. It might've been a minute or an hour. The sleet outside was the same, but the sky looked a little darker when Link's head finally lifted. He took an extra-long breath, scanning the area for monsters, then let it out. 

The cut looked like it did before, just maybe a little less filthy. He'd need to do something else. He didn't have the brainpower to work around this situation like he'd worked around so many shrine puzzles. He was pragmatic, but Link knew he wasn't necessarily smart. He'd only learned what he needed to in his life, and even then somehow missed out on first aid, unless he knew before and it just didn't come back. 

He had a handful of elixir ingredients, none of them promising. He was probably hungry beneath the nausea and the ache. He needed sleep, but couldn't realistically succumb to it here, in this position. He was stuck. 

_ Mipha,  _ he mouthed. If only she could come back. She could probably see, and was probably stressed. He didn't want that. But there was no one else. 

The sky darkened even more as he thought about it, dabbing the cleaner parts of the shirt against his skin. The fabric felt hot. 

_ I could hang on _ , he thought.  _ I could wait and stay conscious and Mipha will have strength to heal me again, it can't be that long now, it can't, and then after that I'll make a point to learn and next time I'll do better.  _

But Link's stomach dropped when he finally looked down. His eyesight wavered. This wasn't good. This situation - so silly, so stupid, so preventable - was unlike any he'd had since he woke up; he'd always been so prepared, so self reliant. Since he left that cave he'd cared for himself, hadn't he? He only paid for supplies out of convenience, when it was exponentially faster than gathering them. He made his own food and elixirs. He slept in trees and caves and, well, maybe he hadn't been taking care of himself, either. This body was uncomfortably human, after all, and there weren't that many safe places in Hyrule to sleep. Not when you were paranoid and faced with far too much to do and a lot of pressure to do it quickly. 

So stupid. Link curled in on himself miserably, cradling the wound. He was cold again. Freezing, though his side was on fire.

Where could he go? Not the Domain he had disappeared from. Not Kakariko, where Impa's sharp eyes resided. Not a stable where such wounds would cause a commotion, where he always tried to hard to avoid scrutiny because for whatever reason the groups of Hylians felt so foreign and threatening. Not the Korok Forest where the Deku Tree could watch and judge him. Not Purah or Robbie, whose curiosities will be the death of Link. Not Hateno where there was no one. 

Rito Village, then, he thought miserably. The place he  _ was _ , where Revali  _ sent  _ him, where if he'd stayed he probably wouldn't be in this condition at all. 

But he was nobody there, really, just a random descendant of the failure-champion who wanted to fix things, whom only Teba seemed to take seriously about it anyway. There was no one there he couldn't face, as much as he didn't  _ want _ to face anyone at all. 

So, Rito Village. He'd only go if it got worse. 

He looked down again, annoyed at the way the world shuddered. Maybe it was already worse. It was becoming hard to tell. 

It was nearly pitch black outside - when had that happened? Link had been awake the whole time, he's sure of it, and yet somehow time shuddered again, maybe when he blinked. Not good. It didn't hurt anymore. Also probably not good, even if it was a nice change. But it looked disgusting, as it had, so Mipha hadn't healed him, then. Maybe it hasn't been that long. Maybe she spent more power on Medoh than she had before, so it's taking her longer to recharge. Either way he wasn't going to be able to wait for her, though the thought made his heart sink. He could die here if he did nothing and there was little he could do, this time, if anything at all. 

Rito Village. The thought of facing anyone hurt far more than the injuries - and made them almost start to throb again through the numbness, too - but the realization that even his fingers had little feeling in them when trying to manipulate the Slate, going slippery with blood and clumsy with fatigue, made it blatant what he had to do. 

Link did not make a graceful landing. Usually he sort of materialized with a tingle, giving him just enough warning to land lightly on the balls of his feet, painlessly, ready to run. When injured it was more of a clumsy drop that would land him on one knee, but that was fine too. 

This time, though, was a bit of a disaster made worse by the presence of witnesses. His sluggish mind didn't even process that he'd been teleported at all till he was already flat on the ground on his injured side, ears ringing and wind knocked out of him. 

The urge to curl up in pain hit like a bus, and he might've let out some undignified gasping sound, but he still couldn't hear anything past the ringing and maybe the beating of his own heart. It faded to a weird rushing sound as his vision sharpened, face inches from a pair of Rito talons. Definitely embarrassing. 

A beak appeared in his field of vision. It opened and shut, presumably saying something. Link couldn't give any response. 

The shrine's glow was blocked, suddenly, by the sweep of some fast-moving thing - a wing, maybe, but it didn't matter, as Link grabbed for his sword anyway. He didn't make it. 

His fingertips barely brushed the handle before feathers brushed the back of his head, and everything went dark. 

\---

Waking up was  _ never _ pleasant. It always came in a burst of panic, a fraught handful of seconds in which Link would fear he'd forgotten again, been reborn again. He preferred regular catnaps on the back of a steady horse or in the entrance of a shrine after finishing its trial. Being surrounded by Sheikah technology was uncomfortable and didn't help with the business of waking, but it was relatively safe. He'd never rested better than when, frustrated by Vah Ruta's last puzzle after three days of sleepless efforts inside the Beast, he'd laid his aching body right down on the hard floor and gone to sleep. 

Waking up in a Rito hammock, however, was a new level of jarring dissonance. Even before fully conscious, Link was already panicking at the lack of solid ground, despite having slept fairly soundly in plenty of trees. 

So, as soon as his brain and body could join up, Link rolled and promptly deposited himself facedown on the wooden floor with a thud. Not a very solid one. All of his weapons were missing, even the Master Sword, though it lay sheathed inches from his hand. He didn't grab it. 

"Good morning."

Teba's calm voice came from somewhere near the doorway, but Link was still slightly stunned from the fall, and ignored it. 

"Hey," chided a second voice - Saki, he thinks. "Careful!"

He lifts his head. Saki's rushing toward him with a bundle of plants. 

"I told Teba to watch you," she scolds, but not at him. "Maybe that was a mistake."

It wasn't. If anyone had been hovering over him like she is now, he'd probably have lashed out, he thinks mournfully. Then it would  _ not _ have been a good morning. 

"Feeling any better? I expected you to sleep a lot longer but… admittedly I'm not too familiar with Hylians." Her tone was gentle, almost apologetic. She brushed feathers over his brow as though he were a Rito fledgling, but he didn't mind. He probably couldn't get up if he tried, anyway. The wind had been knocked out of him  _ far _ to many times lately. 

He forced a noncommittal sound. It came out like a gasp. 

She nodded like he'd said something, and kindly ignored his strangled yelp at suddenly being lifted and deposited back in the hammock. 

"You sure took a while," she murmured, sweeping hair from his face. "We expected you right after Medoh stopped flying. A few people said they saw you, but that you disappeared. They're half convinced they hallucinated." She sounded gentle and amused, but Link's brain got stuck when she said  _ we _ . _ We expected you.  _

"Teba said you were unharmed going in?"

Link nodded. 

"And yet… well, it isn't my place to question. Or worry, probably, but I will nonetheless." Something odd lingered in her expression, some strange tenderness that made it hard to look at her. Again, though, she didn't seem to mind when his eyes shifted away and he said nothing.

"I know you have to go to the desert, and to Death Mountain… it may be selfish but promise me, please, that when you return from those Divine Beasts, if you are not with their people to recover, that you will come here?"

Almost against his own will, Link nodded after locking eyes briefly with Teba, who leaned against the opposite wall with his head cocked and face calm as ever. His eyes, for once, weren't intimidating. And they were nothing like Revali's. 

He could come here, he thinks. This is somewhere he can be, for a moment, when he needs to. And it's somewhere he can sleep, even with Saki's feathers ghosting over him and her voice audible as she sings in that birdlike way only the Rito can, hers a low warbling sound like a humming, soft on the ears. 

So he does sleep, and it is the deepest he has slept since resurrection. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of plenty of LoZ fics I've been doing as writing practice after failing NaNoWriMo and realizing I need to work on my skills. A lot. Haven't written seriously in over three years, but I used to do a LOT of fanfic as mindless practice in my teens, so I might as well again, and figured I'd post them off and on because I've been reading some on here (I'd never read Zelda fanfic, the community seems so nice though).  
> Please be a little gentle on my accuracy in regards to canon, as I've been away from Zelda for a bit and hit on BOTW late, having finished it just a few weeks ago and about to replay it with the DLC.  
> Also I do proofread, but I also write and post mainly on my phone so please forgive formatting or minor errors (point them out and I'll gladly fix them though because it's wildly annoying).  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
